Rivers outdoing Peyton in one area

Through seven games Philip Rivers is the Zen master among Zen masters when it comes to passing accuracy. With an NFL-best completion rate of 73.9 percent, Rivers is outdoing even MVP Watch leader Peyton Manning, who can bend spoons with his mind. The marksmanship beats Rivers' career percentage entering this season by 10.3 points.

You, reader, can decide whether seven games is a small sample size. Without question a 16.2-percent gain in accuracy off a nine-year career mark (63.6 percent) qualifies as more than a bump. Completing 73.9 percent against Palomar College would be nifty.

As Mike McCoy also coached Manning last year, he was the person to ask Monday when seeking insights into Rivers’ spiffy completion rate.

Except McCoy didn’t see 73.9 percent as a big deal, given the source. Mangling the question’s premise, the new ball coach responded with a question.

“My question to you is, why do you think he wouldn’t be accurate?”

McCoy followed by saying Rivers "is the guy" that McCoy and his coaches "thought he was going to be" when they arrived last winter.

“You might think that was the wrong response,” McCoy said (I didn’t), “but that’s the confidence we have in him, and the system we put in place. I think that it’s a great system that the staff has put together here.”

In Rivers, the new Chargers coaches inherited a better-than-average quarterback who at age 31 was still in the prime range. For all his critical turnover problems of 2011-12 that everyone agreed weren't entirely his doing, Rivers continued to show a very quick release while putting up good overall numbers (including a passer rating in 2012 that topped Super Bowl champion-to-be Joe Flacco). Further, he finished the 2012 season on the rise.

But a coach is required to see a player not as he is but also for what he can become – and the guess here is that when the Spanoses and Ron Wolf interviewed him last winter, McCoy sold them on a Rivers renovation.

Weeding out dumb turnovers and reducing sacks was central to the plan. Completing more passes -- lots more -- was an expectation.

With nine games to go, Rivers is on track to obliterate his career-high of 66 percent set in 2010. Seems the new ball coach knew something.

But isn’t Rivers just dinking and dunking?

While the deep ball is less a weapon than in years such as 2009, he is fourth in the NFL in yards per attempt (8.6 yards) and second in touchdown passes (15).

Getting the ball out fast and on target, Rivers is keeping a thin Chargers defense on the sideline. The Chargers are fourth in time of possession (33:18) and 11th in plays from scrimmage in part because they are second in third down efficiency (49.4 percent) and second in first downs (171) and third in yards (3,285).

Talent drives scheme, and Chargers newcomer Danny Woodhead, described by Jaguars coach Gus Bradley as “Sprolesish,” is providing a playmaking option not available last year to Norv Turner, an outspoken fan of Sproles. Upgrades in the line have helped – but are easily overstated given the use so far of five left tackles, four left guards and three right guards.

Teasing out exact cause-and-effect is folly, but it continues to seem the new Chargers system makes better use of Rivers’ super-fast release and rare ability to assess and account for everyone on both offense and defense.

There’s consistent clarity to Rivers’ game. In the seven contests, muddy moments were fewer than in 2011-12.

This has coincided with McCoy and his offensive coaches equipping Rivers with tools similar to those deployed by other veterans such as Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers.

Fast passes are the offense's core. Sometimes Rivers is so rapid, his blockers are still retreating into their set when the spiral whizzes overhead.

Injuries are the norm in the NFL so it's up to coaches to injury-proof their attacks. This often starts with having a franchise quarterback. But that's not enough. Training the quarterback to change in and out of plays at the line, to speed up or slow down tempo, to master the quick pass -- all as integral parts, not merely late-half tools -- seems to be part of making an offense more nimble and better able to weather the almost inevitable injuries.

Take last Sunday's game at Jacksonsville, where the loss of two blockers in the first half made rookie right tackle D.J. Fluker the fifth Chargers player to man left tackle.

Rivers first responded with two Ryan Mathews runs to Fluker's side, where Antonio Gates flanked the rookie. The total gain was 18 yards.

The first pass, a screen to Eddie Royal for seven yards, was out 1.1 seconds after the snap. Next Rivers faked a handoff as Fluker blocked down; the ball was out in 2.8 seconds downfield to Royal, who ran it in for a touchdown.

When Rivers passed again, on third-and-1, the ball was out in 1.2 seconds to Woodhead and moved the sticks. The fourth pass, another completion, good for eight yards to Gates, took 1.8 seconds. Then came a 1.6-second dart to rookie Keenan Allen for five yards.

From snap to release, 2.5 seconds is brisk by NFL standards. Protecting Fluker as much as Fluker protected him, Rivers averaged 1.7 seconds on the initial five throws. The five completions that included a 27-yards score went to four players, none of whom was Malcom Floyd or Danario Alexander, the team's top two wideouts out with season-ending injuries. Next to Fluker at guard was Johnnie Troutman, a backup in his fourth career start. At right guard was another backup, Rich Ohrnberger.

Asked to do more with his mind, a franchise quarterback's body is hit less because he can better control the game.

Rivers, for sure, is absorbing less punishment than he did last year.

He likely doesn’t have a Pro Bowl blocker in front of him and is 10th in passes but has taken the fewest hits (18) of any NFL quarterback (source: NFL.com stats). For what it’s worth, Norv Turner’s Browns quarterbacks, whose protectors include a seven-time Pro Bowler in left tackle Joe Thomas and a top-10 center in Alex Mack, have taken an NFL-high 61 hits. (In fairness, the Browns, since trading Trent Richardson between Weeks Two and Three, lack backs as capable as Woodhead, Mathews and Ronnie Brown, and going from Rivers to Brandon Weeden was bound to make Norv's quarterback tutoring far dicier. It was whimsically suggested here last spring that taking on Weeden called into question Norv’s sanity.)

Greater clarity in San Diego's offense, meantime, is evident too in the decline in negative running plays, from 2.1 to 1.3 to per game.

Do seven games constitute a trend? Will coming opponents benefit from film study of this new Chargers offense and its changing personnel? How will Rivers fare against the rival Chiefs, who seem to have the best defense, by far, of any Chargers opponent?

Whatever answers await, the offense's progress beats watching Rivers scramble to beat the play clock or take three sacks per game, as he did last year. Rivers is the franchise quarterback McCoy thought him to be last winter, when the Cardinals also interviewed McCoy, and Rivers, three times a Pro Bowler under Turner, seems to be evolving under coaches McCoy, Ken Whisenhunt and Frank Reich with personnel help from Tom Telesco.